Learning about the past

History all around you -

While traveling through France recently I learnt a lot ( didn't remember it all) about the places I visited and the people who made things happen there in times long gone. Internet at one's finger tips to discover why this particular person has been immortalized in a statue. Why a bridge carries a certain name. How the city flag or crest came into being. Quite mysterious then, how this was the topic in a message to me by my Australian grandson. 

- and that of the family kind

“Oma, does our ( meaning my) family have a family crest? Here I was, in a lovely restored French barn now a modern comfortable holiday let, a gîte, overlooking the Pyrenees when this message popped on my screen.

Now it isn’t that Max isn’t interested in his paternal family ( his granddad), but Max has been to the Netherlands. He has stood on the spot where the house once stood in which I was born. He has scaled the church tower from the Bonifatius in Leeuwarden, the one my father climbed when the Netherlands, and more precisely, the North, was liberated ending WWII.

I think, summize, that those experiences and the memories he gained has had a deeper impact on him and now, 4 years on years and their relevance has a deeper meaning.

Yes, there is a crest in the family on my mum’s side. Dating presumably since the 1600s. There is a description of the symbols but not a really clear explanation why those symbols were used. Obviously there are guesses, well thought out suppositions and stabs in the dark. 

I have translated and shared the findings, will pointed him to our genealogy website and promised to unearth ( I have a source 😇) information on my dad’s side. 

The question arose, is it an idea to create our own crest…one which embraces the Dutch/ Frysian/ New Zealand and Australian heritage to which he belongs? What would he/ we want this crest to say, to tell future generations about us, about Max and his digging into his roots? 

It got me thinking, as things do, and I realise those crests did have purpose. Why did ‘we’ stop creating or claiming them? Who has a right to the family crest designed by those so long ago with their story in mind? 

Being an OmaFArAway, I wanted something tangible and lasting to introduce myself and extended family to my grandchildren. I unearthed photos of my grandparents, aunts and uncles, my siblings, and their children. I created a mini genealogy album. To date I have made one for them all with one in the making. Yes, I am to become an OMA once more. Baby is due end of August early September. And YES, I am looking at my travel possibilities to return Down Under for the first time since leaving there mid May 2019 after a 3 month Oma visit. 

So thoughts to ponder on, ideas to develop and choices to be made. Who has and still uses the family crest for official or unofficial purposes. Letterheads maybe?

So back to the drawing board I go, researching more information for my video I am working on. I am grateful for those who spend time building all these information websites. Now there's a challenging task. 

Be good be kind and keep smiling.

 

Link to my YouTube channel: OmaFarAway

Fulfilling a schoolgirl's wish: Part 2: Where the fallen rest

Ingredients for a better world

Pray for peace, act in kindness for peace, mend relationships, extend a hand in friendship, listen, forgive, accept, be welcoming, share, explore, understand, embrace, light a candle, send a card, make that phone call, share a meal, mend that fence!

In today's world still as relevant now as it was then. I think the author had no idea that his words would still be so relevant today as it was then. How his heart would still ache.

Read Robert's story.

For the Fallen 

Robert Laurence Binyon,

Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

About the author

Laurence Binyon composed his best known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. A plaque marks the location at Pentire Point, north of Polzeath. However, there is also a small plaque on the East Cliff north of Portreath, further south on the same north Cornwall coast, which also claims to be the place where the poem was written.

The poem was written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the British Expeditionary Force had suffered casualties following its first encounter with the Imperial German Army at the Battle of Mons on 23 August, its rearguard action during the retreat from Mons in late August and the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August, and its participation with the French Army in holding up the Imperial German Army at the First Battle of the Marne between 5 and 9 September 1914.

Laurence said in 1939 that the four lines of the fourth stanza came to him first. These words of the fourth stanza have become especially familiar and famous, having been adopted by the Royal British Legion as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen Servicemen and women.

Laurence Binyon was too old to enlist in the military forces but he went to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly in 1916. He lost several close friends and his brother-in-law in the war.

Source: 

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/laurence-binyon-for-the-fallen.htm

Link to the YouTube channel: Re -Tour de France

Fulfilling a schoolgirl's wish: part 1.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

My primary school years, well most of them, were in New Zealand. The war history lessons contained, for obvious reasons, references from an English perspective. New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth. On April the 25th the ANZAC ( Australian- New Zealand- Army- Corps) commemoration ceremonies are held. To embrace one’s new homeland, it was deemed important to absorb this history as one’s own. In the early ‘60s right up to the ‘70s we immigrants were encouraged to speak English even at home. It would help us become part of the community, people and culture. My parents were expressly asked to not speak Dutch with us as it would harm our integration process. Best we ‘left that behind us’!

I conquered the ‘th’ pretty quickly and worked hard at sounding just like my classmates. Believe me when I say bullying isn’t a new phenomena. It isn’t! Kids were cruel then and are still cruel today. I feel for new settlers for whatever reason they need to leave their homeland. It’s a harder road to hoe than one anticipates, becoming part of a new culture while not denying one’s own.

Anyway, moving on. 

In Europe, one can be confronted with war memorials almost anywhere. Places which were heavily under attack, damaged or even destroyed. In New Zealand the war was fought overseas. Their men and women travelled to where they were needed. There are no buildings, areas or places bombed and destroyed. So all one learnt about the war was abstract. We read Anna Frank’s diary. I recall feeling a sense of pride. She was one of us ( the Dutch girl in
me) ! We saw film footage of Dunkirk. I recall a movie I saw as a child and I am sure it was called something like The Albatros, or featured an albatros featuring a recluse on a beach, the boats, the panic, the rallying of fishermen etc to save as many of the military from a sure death. This was something so real, so fascinating, and as I said, so abstract that it stayed with me to this day.

I needed to visit Dunkirk, Normandy and places from the history books and stories. I needed to see the poppy fields. It was number one on my list. I am grateful Leen, my husband, understood. 

I felt the history! I wasn’t alone I didn’t imagine it. Another couple who walked where I walked, said the same. They had goosebumps on their arms to prove it. 

I was in contact with a lady In New Zealand who I knew through a FB group I belong to. Her mother had served as a nurse overseas, including Dunkirk. I shared some of the images and my experience with her. It helped her ( her words) understand her mother’s story more. 

The world has moved on. The area where so much bloodshed happened has too. A whole boulevard has been realised. Apartments, shops, a beach to use recreationally. Quite a statement. I am actually quite pleased in the sense that we are now free to enjoy this part of the world in that freedom for which so many died. 

Freedom and war:  is still abstract. The senselessness of war! The killing, the destroying. A big SIGH filled with sadness escaped me as I wrote this just now. Smile at a stranger and you'll change the world.

Be good - be kind - keep smiling

Link to the YouTube channel: Re -Tour de France: Dunkirk

The route the wishes the possibilities

Welcome back, enjoy the read! 

If you like: Leave a comment, I'll be back each week with more. 

Well, we may have decided on the trip, the country and a timeline, we also need to define the route and make sure that some of the wishes really are fulfilled and we give ourselves extra opportunities and cover the weather conditions. Do we have enough places to visit if wet, cold, hot or otherwise? What is NOT to be missed? 

Like all good plans, as long as one stays flexible then everything is possible and disappointments minimal. Well that’s the theory. I am writing this sitting in the communal lounge-bar entrance area of the holiday village Madame Vacances in Trébas. Our 7th address to date. I can recommend this address as a place to stay. So far we have ticked off - the coast as I wished, mainly too because it contained areas of interest for me. I have nurtured a desire to visit Dunkirk and Normandy since a child- weird dream possibly but the history lessons I received made these places intriguing. The information must have triggered something in me that the seed was sown. I’ve watched movies like Churchill, Dunkirk and the like which only made the wish even stronger. Not unimportant too, was that we had spent many a summer holiday in France with the caravan…mainly inland, it was time for some coastal views. In 2019 we travelled south through the middle so that area too we had visited quite intensively ( links to the 2019 Playlist below). To follow the coast down to Souin, just before the Spanish border in the Pyrenees, was our main challenge to fill as far as the program was concerned. The holiday address Leen found for us there was about 20km out of Lourdes. Another wee back of my mind- please may I visit Lourdes at some stage of my life wish! We made this come true..

The Pyrenees was Leen’s wish. He just loves the mountains, the crevices, the gorges and the atmosphere this area brings. In 2019, the Alps featured as the ‘high in the sky’ part of the programme. So the Pyrenees was the distance as far down as we would travel. Any further and we’d be crossing the border into Spain. The slightly touching on the 2019 experience- our way up would be sort of through the middle. My dream to visit the Roquefort Cheese caves came to play.

Wine area, cheese, snow, Tour de France routes - you couldn’t get more French than that if you tried!

France here we come: Viva la France! 

Be good - be kind - keep smiling

The link to my YouTube channel

Re-Tour de France 2022

Time out: Where to go!

Welcome back!
It was coffee time. After breakfast, the morning paper, quickly glanced through these day as it’s all bad, we have our first coffee of the day, together generally unless, well you know, someone has an appointment or something.

Anyway, coffee time. Subject: where and when shall we go for a holiday. The COVID restrictions are easing everywhere. We have been extremely fortunate to have kept ourselves COVID free, or think we have. Staying home is no punishment. I can hibernate quite easily but my husband is more restless. He needs to ‘break out’ occasionally.

It is February. Still bitterly cold with dark mornings and evenings, though the change is in the air. Where and when to plan! Exciting stuff. I’ve got a long held dream. The French coast. It’s just we never really drove to the coast with the caravan, but went to the lavender fields or the vineyards in France. Even the Alps weren’t left out on our travels. That coast just never got a look in.

Right: the mood was set, a coastal road trip. We would go as far as, well my husband filled that in. “You have the coast I'd love the Pyrénées.” They form the French and Spanish border. We’d stay on the French side. The trip back would be roughly through the middle. Wow, within minutes we had the route in mind. Well, roughly. The timing would determine what we could explore and where. 

Now I’ve mentioned my likes, cooking and the kitchen and my Woman Cave where I write and edit my YouTube videos. He likes a challenge and enjoys the voyage of discovery, delving into websites on the internet and researching places to stay, to visit, to eat at. You name it, he’ll find it. And find them he did. After weeks of research, applications and making sure we had the appropriate cancellation options we had 10 places to lay our heads at and 5 weeks in which to do just that. 

How exciting. All that in a short period. During the planning war broke out in the Ukraine. How dreadfully dreadfully tragic. Here we were, the privilege of planning this trip meanwhile this atrocity happening right on our doorstep or on ‘our’ landmass so to speak. No huge oceans but roads, long ones I know but still. Here I was wanting to visit those places where thousands of lives were lost and here history was repeating itself.  Why? For heaven’s sake, WHY?

War refugees poured into neighbouring countries. Fleeing the atrocities of war, of death and destruction. This has certainly had an effect on our thinking and planning. Yet, as close as this was to us- so far away it appeared as well. A contradiction in terms.

Being aware all things could become unstuck, we tentatively kept our plans open with the thought in the back of our minds we may need to cancel. But we didn’t need to. We were free to move from place to place at will. This was one of those moments when you realise that life is fragile. That plans are only plans and not reality till you make them so. Our time to depart would go ahead as planned. Weird though! Very very weird.

Be good - be kind - keep smiling!

PS Keep an eye on my YouTube channel. Trip videos to be posted there soon.

Enjoy the 2019 French trip by clicking on the link below.

France 2019

or

OmaFarAway